All Episodes
Previous Next
Sept. 24, 2022 - The Matt Walsh Show
14:19
Chef Matt Walsh - The Bacon Master
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
(upbeat music)
This is actually the most important thing we'll discuss today.
And that's because one of the biggest problems today, in my view, is that most people in the country don't know how to properly cook bacon.
And now everyone says they love bacon, right?
And this has been an internet meme for years, where people go on and on about how much they love bacon, yet most of the time, I know you've had this experience, you go to someone's house, you stay the night, you wake up the next morning, they make breakfast, they make bacon, and then you feel grateful for that, but then what they put in front of you is an abomination.
It's either burnt to a crisp, thereby robbing it of all its bacon-y flavor, or it's undercooked and flimsy and has the consistency of microwaved taffy.
Or it's both, it's kind of burnt in parts and then undercooked in other parts and it becomes this pockmarked leprous monstrosity.
So I'm going to do a PSA for you guys.
I want to show you an example of perfectly cooked bacon.
I'm going to show you a picture of what it looks like.
This actually is bacon that was cooked by one of the great chefs of our time.
Speaking of being one of the best in the world at something.
And one of the great chefs of our time, that is me.
And I want to show you this picture.
Here it is.
Now, you see there, and please leave this photo up for a minute.
First of all, you see only four pieces.
And now, that could remove all of my credibility as a chef if I only made four pieces of bacon.
Because who does that?
What sort of deranged lunatic only makes four pieces of bacon?
Well, I will inform you that I ate three of the pieces before I took that picture.
I ate three of the pieces.
Leaving four to split among my family and that's four members of the family so they each got one I got three actually after I took the picture I had one more so I got four and then they split the three between them and because you know that's what generosity is all about but anyway what you see here is I want you to notice this bacon is firm.
It's got the nice singe, the nice blackened edge all around.
It's got the reddish-brown coloring all throughout each slice.
It's very consistent.
The perfect mix of tender and crispy, not overdone, not underdone.
The fatty parts are also cooked, not burned, but cooked.
Melt in your mouth.
A brilliant job by me, an amazing job by me.
Now, how did I do this?
Well, I put the bacon on a preheated skillet, heated to medium high heat.
Don't want it too hot, don't want it too cool.
I put it on, let it sit for about three minutes.
And then I flip it, give it another couple minutes.
And now, now that I've done a couple minutes on each side, now I'm really just flipping it back and forth
several more times.
And I'm trying to get that perfect color and texture.
It's more of an art than a science.
Cooking bacon, though, is all about vigilance.
It's all about loyalty, heroism.
You can't leave the stove for any reason.
Eyes on the bacon the whole time.
All of your senses dialed in.
Sight, hearing, smell.
Become one with the bacon.
Tap into its essence.
You're not just doing this visually.
You're listening.
You're smelling.
You're feeling.
You're sensing it.
Now, what my wife will do, she'll throw bacon on the stove, and then she'll leave.
Because, you know, one of the kids fell down the steps or something, and she has to go check to make sure they don't have to go to the hospital.
Wrong.
The kid will be fine.
She'll figure it out.
It's his fault for falling down the steps in the first place.
Should have paid attention.
Stay with the bacon.
Baby's crying.
Kids are screaming.
Doesn't matter.
Stay focused.
Remember your priorities.
Remember the great responsibility that you assumed on yourself when you opened that package of bacon.
Now, you're the one who opened it.
And now you're committed.
You have to see it all the way through.
And then here's the trick, of course.
Make sure to take the bacon off of the stove 90 seconds before it's done.
So you want to take it off when it's a little bit underdone.
The grease is going to continue to cook the bacon, so you let the grease finish the job.
If you take the bacon off, this is a big mistake people make, take the bacon off when it looks perfect and you say, oh, I've got perfect bacon.
You want to call all your friends and family, take a picture like I did.
By the time everyone gets into the room and you're taking the picture, it's ruined.
It's done.
It's burned.
Why did that happen?
Because it kept cooking for 90 seconds afterwards.
So you want to time it perfectly.
Take it off 90 seconds before it's done.
and then you will have perfectly cooked bacon.
(upbeat music)
This is from Chris.
Says Matt, "Your disastrous and frankly dangerously heretical guidance on cooking the sweet ambrosia
that is salty, delicious pork belly, simply called bacon by the untutored,
is nothing short of inciting vandalism."
You might as well champion drawing crayon mustaches on the Mona Lisa.
Every man with an orderly mind and properly educated in the preparation of the gift God literally blessed mankind with on a tablecloth from the heavens knows it must be grilled.
Only a searing, well-seasoned grill provides the proper balance of heat and carbon required to allow the internal fat to reach just that crispy and tender homeostasis which yields a perfect sweetness that can set off any dish from omelets to oysters to only bacon.
Indeed, the only acceptable justification for cooking bacon in a skillet is a need to save and use the drippings to later infuse into a bottle of Kentucky bourbon.
Your distorted views on this topic make me question your suitability for any future tyrannical aspirations.
Well, Chris, I spent 10 minutes on my show talking about bacon, while other shows are talking about breaking news, important news like impeachment.
I'm sitting here talking about bacon.
Okay?
That's the kind of commitment you get from me when it comes to this topic.
Is there any other show hosts?
Anyone else in conservative media anywhere who's going to spend 10 minutes of a show talking about how to cook bacon?
Maybe there's a reason for that.
Possible.
But that's what I did.
And your response is to criticize me?
Your response, rather than writing me an email saying, thank you so much, Matt, for that beautiful presentation.
Thank you for calling attention to this.
Thank you for raising awareness about the proper way to cook bacon.
Thank you for that.
You are a hero.
You deserve the Nobel Prize.
You are a genius.
Instead of that, which is what I expect, I get criticism.
Unbelievable.
And you expect me to believe that you know how to cook bacon?
Because, you know, cooking bacon comes down to character.
It comes down to what kind of a person are you?
And I firmly believe if you cannot properly cook bacon, that's a reflection of your character.
It's obvious that you have character flaws, one of them ingratitude.
So no, I don't want your ungrateful bacon.
You don't need, I showed you the photographic evidence.
You saw it for yourself.
So maybe you need to expand your mind a little bit.
I don't need a fancy grill.
I'll put it on a skillet.
I could cook the bacon on a hot furnace, okay?
I could cook it on the street on a 90 degree day and it's gonna look that good.
It's not about the tools you use, Chris.
It's about the spirit, the love that you put into it.
That's what I believe.
[screeching]
Okay, so...
Danette has given us a picture of her bacon, her bacon dish.
Let's take a look at this picture that you sent, Danette.
Here it is.
Now, I'm gonna leave that up on the screen for a minute, because we really need to get into this.
Danette, you want me to review the bacon.
I will do it.
But you can't get offended.
Now, remember, you asked for this.
Now, um...
The management training course that I took for my assistant manager job at Domino's when I was 19 told me that you should always couch criticism with positive feedback as well.
So on a positive note, I like the idea behind your dish.
I like your energy.
I like your hustle.
I like your commitment to pork.
I like the cheddar gravy idea.
All that is good.
Very commendable.
Unfortunately, the execution is a disaster on the level of the Hindenburg.
Now this is supposed to be the finished product, correct?
What we're looking at here?
So you've already cooked it?
If you've already cooked this, then why is there raw bacon draped over the pork?
Is the pork tenderloin raw too?
Is that just a live pig hanging out under there?
I mean, look at this bacon.
Look at this bacon.
There is precisely one piece of bacon that is properly cooked on this entire dish.
And you could spot it yourself.
It's right there.
You see the horizontal strips of bacon at the bottom of the screen.
The one in the middle right there, that is the only properly cooked piece of bacon.
And how do you know that it's properly cooked?
Well, you notice the coloring.
You notice the charred edges.
You notice the texture.
It's got all of the hallmarks of a properly well-cooked piece of bacon.
So, well done!
You did one nicely cooked piece of bacon.
The problem is, there's like 20 pieces of bacon on that thing, and I would never say that it's a problem to have 20 pieces of bacon.
It's only a problem when you don't cook the other 19!
Now, Really having that one well cooked piece of bacon only makes the rest of it worse because then you get the, you know, now we can compare it.
So compare that to the vertical slice all the way to the far left, um, of the, of the screen or no, the far right, depending on which way you're looking at this.
Now notice it's sickly, pale white appearance.
It looks like it has the stomach flu, pale, sweaty, soggy, just lying there limp.
And you serve that to your family?
Are you trying to kill them?
My God, Danette, this is... If my wife served that to me, we'd be in marriage counseling.
That's how bad it is.
Now, the bacon does get progressively better as you go down the tenderloin, but even the best cooked piece of bacon is not cooked very well at all.
So let me ask you this, Danette.
When you make meatballs, do you just...
You know, take the ground beef and grab a chunk of raw ground beef and throw it on the table?
Throw it in your husband's face?
Here's your meatball!
Is that what you do?
Because that's the equivalent of what you've done here.
I can't look at this anymore.
I am shocked and appalled.
I have to assume that this is some sort of practical joke.
But thank you for being a subscriber, and thank you for listening as well.
Appreciate your support.
This is from Laura, says, Hello Matt, Supreme Leader of the World.
I come to you to have my husband's bacon judged.
He says that today it is perfect.
But you, as the all-knowing, will be able to tell me if it is or not.
I have attached a picture for you.
Okay, Laura, perfect bacon, you say?
Well, pride cometh before the fall.
But let's see here.
Let's take a look at it.
This is the... Let's put the picture up on the screen.
This is the supposedly perfect bacon.
There it is.
Okay.
So I think I get it now.
Your husband meant that this is the perfect example of terrible bacon.
I think that's what he meant to say.
I'm gonna assume that's what he meant to say.
Because that would make sense in that context.
Yeah, okay.
So the coloring is okay.
The actual cook on the bacon is okay.
I'm not liking the color at the top left corner there.
You see that bacon?
That piece is much darker than the rest.
So the incongruity, the lack of symmetry there is very troubling to me.
Then at the very bottom, you've got that horizontal piece that looks sickly and looks like it has yellow fever or something.
So that's a problem.
But all of that, you know, would only knock this bacon down to about a C+.
So if I'm just going based on the cook and the color, I'm going to say C+.
Not bad, also not great.
The thing that drops it the rest of the way, to an F, and becomes grounds for deportation, is the most obvious thing of all, is the mangled, twisted, contorted shape of the bacon itself.
So, what was your husband doing?
Was he torturing the bacon to get it to talk?
I mean, it's already dead.
Someone let him know.
It doesn't have anything to tell him.
What did the bacon do to him that made him feel like he had to draw and quarter it?
When someone puts bacon down in front of me, I expect to see strips of bacon.
Strips of bacon.
Not mangled clumps of bacon.
A perfectly shaped strip, neatly sitting there, politely waiting for me to eat it.
Okay?
I want to see bacon that is proud.
I don't want to see bacon that's begging me to put it out of its misery.
That's my problem.
Now, I assume that when you saw this bacon by your husband, your immediate response was to contact a divorce attorney.
And I don't blame you for that.
And I'm not saying that it would be wrong to divorce your husband for making bacon like this.
I mean, certainly legally, ethically, biblically, you would be well within your rights.
But, look, you've got to think about the kids, Laura, if you have kids.
If you don't, then get out of there as fast as you can.
If you do, you don't want to leave them with a man who prepares breakfast this way.
And so, you know, I'm sorry that you're going through this in your marriage.
And the other thing is I don't blame your husband.
I blame whoever taught him how to make bacon.
That monstrous person.
And now I fear that he's going to pass that down to his own children.
And it's like a curse that will never end.
▲
Export Selection